This interesting book is about a rather large family as told through several generations through the eyes of Terry Louis, named after his Uncle Louis. As young Terry and his family are on their way home from a July 4 celebration, Terry has a toy parachute that he is holding out the window watching it billow as the air fills it while the car goes along. But, as boys will do, he lost that parachute by not holding it tight enough. He wanted his dad to stop and get his parachute but he refused until Uncle Louis told his dad to stop and retrieve that parachute because it might save his life some time. Little did young Terry Louis know what a parachute would mean to him during World War II.
The above is just the introduction to the book but it grabs your interest immediately. Louis was loaded into an airplane with other paratroopers preparing to be flown into German controlled French territory for the D-Day Normandy invasion in June 1944. As they approached the landing zone behind the invasion front, the flak became terrible to the point that all of them wanted to get out of that plane sooner rather than later. Several of the C-47's, including the one Louis was in, were hit by the ground flak making the paratroopers jump before their targeted area, sending them into an unknown area quite far from their planned drop.
The story then takes you back to 1926 cold and snowy Kansas where Terry Louis's parents were growing up in a family atmosphere on their farm. His parents had driven into town but their return home was halted by a huge snowstorm as their car became stuck, forcing them to try to walk home. Terry's mother didn't make it, freezing to a barbed-wire fence as she tried to follow that fence home. It got too cold and the snow was piled too high to make any progress. His father made it home but in very bad condition and, probably not knowing his wife had not made it.
Switch back to France where Louis was trying to find others from his jump group. None of them knew where they were or if there were any friendly people nearby. He and James, another paratrooper, met and started a dangerous trek to hide from the Germans but also trying to find someone that would help them. The story switches back to Kansas as the family tries to figure out how the mother died and questioned if the father did all he could to save her. The story does switch in flashbacks from the Kansas area to the French/German area but the switch is told in a very easy way to understand. The author had a family story to tell and he has done it remarkably.
James and Louis are eventually captured by the Germans and placed in a concentration camp where they had little food, clothing, blankets, shoes, and almost nothing but their will to live. The past great relationship between Louis and his sister, Jerry, kept his mind occupied and as alert as possible. Louis could speak German but that knowledge he did not allow the Germans to learn. In some of the flashbacks he remembered the Kansas dust-storms, tornados, the depression and the terrible economy it created, and knowing that only the love and tightness of family got them all through just as he would get through this confinement in such a terrible place.
As the generations had passed so did the lives of some, but the memory never passed even though the names changed through marriage. T.L. Needham's family presented him with a great family tale that he tells so well. As with all families, there are ups and downs and it is usually the downs that pull families together. The generations of T. L. Needham's family had all of these.
Reader review by Cy Hilterman of a book supplied by the author and the publisher
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